Sima Qian
Han court astrologer and historian who completed the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) after being sentenced to castration for defending a disgraced general — a 130-chapter history of China from legendary antiquity to his own time that established the annals-biography format used by nearly all subsequent official Chinese histories.
- Lived: 145 BCE – 86 BCE
- Nationality: Chinese
- Roles: Historian
